Journal of Arts & Communities - Volume 9, Issue 2, 2017

The overarching research explored whether and how using contemporary art education and practices can help to reintegrate marginalized youth and to raise their sense of self-efficacy. The framework of theory involving Sartre, Foucault and Bandura informed the research activity in the action research undertaken. In terms of the social and cultural transition beginning with the Enlightenment period in the eighteenth century, the research identified a need to establish the value of how fine art offers theoretical and practical methods that would strengthen and increase educational resources along with pedagogic values for future sustainability of creative and educational impacts. The research design of this particular action research project involves selected research methods incorporating contemporary ‘artbased’ practices and case studies. Three intertwined strands: (1) the action research project, (2) the observations and reflections on three Outsider Art exhibitions and (3) the process evaluation of Maidstone Prison addressed the research question by forming a practical structure that individuals can explore. The chosen methods used for documentation purposes included using a reflective diary, video, photography and sound recordings. The purpose of this case study is to reach a wider audience involved in social sciences, community organizations, the penal system and educational institutions, and also to encourage curiosity to engage in further research in order to address elements of a key finding that highlighted the displacement of the participants within the educational institution, which mirror their exclusion.

Secondary lymphedema after cancer (SLC) lacks a strong presence within breast cancer survivorship discourses despite its notably high rates. Using arts-based research methods, an ethnodrama on SLC was developed with seven women living with SLC. We interviewed nine women with SLC about their responses to the ethnodrama in relation to their own experiences. Using a modified form of discourse analysis, we analysed parallel uses of metaphor within the ethnodrama and audience interviews, and argue for a discursive process of ‘conjoining bodies’, whereby SLC is constructed as a social body of suffering in order to combat marginalization within oncology. We suggest that these metaphors can have effects on the women’s practices of living with SLC and describe implications the ethnodrama and its reception have for wider recognition of SLC.

Loneliness and social isolation are pertinent issues for older people due to the life transitions and loss often experienced in later life. Research points towards the potential for participatory arts with older people to address loneliness and social isolation; however, there is little conceptualization of the mechanisms through which this can be promoted. This conceptual review brings together selected literature that reports on the social impacts of participatory arts with older people to develop a conceptual framework of themes that respond specifically to understandings of the experience of loneliness and social isolation. First, participatory arts can strengthen existing relationships and build new relationships by facilitating social interaction and promoting social capital, thus promoting social embeddedness in the community. Second, participatory arts can address the discrepancies between expected or desired relationships and reality by enhancing well-being, self-worth and a sense of belonging that helps older people to feel more content with their social lives. Third, participatory arts can be accessible and inclusive of everyone and enables older people to make a valued contribution towards the community, which facilitates meaningful social participation. This conceptual framework is a useful resource for those advocating for the value of older people participating in the arts. Key factors raised across the literature are discussed along with avenues for future research. Ultimately, the potential for participatory arts in reducing loneliness and social isolation is evident, but this potential needs further investigation and promotion to make a real difference.

There is a long-standing tradition in cultural policy of measuring the numbers of people who take part in subsidized arts practices. The data collected have informed strategies to remove individual barriers to participation, such as price, access or education. But researchers have increasingly challenged the deficit approach that defines non-participation as a ‘problem’, which rests with those not participating rather than with how the cultural sector operates. This article draws on the growing body of research that has shown how inequalities in participation relate to inequalities within the cultural sector itself, with a narrow range of people working in and defining what culture is valued, for the rest. It examines the concept of place-based funding as a lens through which to consider cultural provision and participation from an asset-based approach to understanding local specificity. Its focus is on Creative People and Places (CPP): an action research programme, in which Arts Council England targeted investment into local districts that were defined by a population survey as having low levels of arts participation. What the research demonstrates are the tensions inherent in national policy-makers’ responses to local cultural needs. It considers the relationship between policy and implementation through consideration of the different governance models operating in the different places and argues for increased accountability of the cultural sector through participatory governance at a local level.

Cultural Mapping as Cultural Inquiry, N. Duxbury, W. Garrett-Petts and D. MACLENNAN (EDS) (2015) New York: Routledge, 378 pp., ISBN: 978-1-138-82186-6, h/bk, $252, ISBN: 978-1-315-74306-6, e/bk, $35.46